Week Eleven (April 5) - Postmodernism



Readings for today
  • Jean Baudrillard, "The Precession of Simulacra" in the RED book.
  • bell hooks, "Postmodern Blackness" in the RED book. 
  • Recommended: Giuliana Bruno, "Ramble City: Postmodernism and Blade Runner", October, Vol. 41, Summer, 1987, pp. 61-74.
Reading Questions & Guides:
For further reading/research:

Bi-Weekly Response Paper Guidelines

You will turn in bi-weekly response papers throughout the course of the semester. Response Paper #1 is due on Week Three (you can write it on any of the readings from Weeks 2-3) and every other week thereafter. You should strive to accomplish the following things in your paper:
  1. Give a succinct synopsis of the article (or articles) in the first paragraph or so. In the most concise and descriptive terms possible, tell me the author's thesis and main points.
  2. Following the synopsis, you need to articulate your own thesis: one that demonstrates your close engagement with the text. You need to critique specific points and/or raise thoughtful questions about the essay...avoid generalities.
  3. Stay away from using evaluative language if you do not provide an accompanying explanation, for example: "I liked this" or "I hated the way ____ says this." Instead, tell me what the author is doing or not doing, why their argument works or doesn't work. The point here is to understand, critique and apply concepts from the class. So while you may like or dislike certain concepts, you need to explain your position rather than just telling me how an author makes you feel.
  4. The paper should be 1-2 single-spaced pages (your name should go in the header) with standard margins and 12pt font. I expect you to turn in all papers via email, sending them as Word documents (.doc are preferable to .docx) files.
Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns about these two assignments.

Case Study Grading Rubric

This chart is based on the assignment/instructions that I posted on the blog, as well as the parameters I laid out in class meetings. Please keep in mind that this is a general guideline for how I am grading your papers and presentations, so each comment may not specifically apply to your paper. In other words, if you received anything less than an 'A' on your paper, it means that you met one or more of the criteria I outline in each section below (but not necessarily all of them).

-Papers-
Grade: A
• Your topic is specific, focused and well thought out.
• Your thesis is clear and the organization of your paper is logical, coherent and organized.
• You effectively apply a theoretical concept, or concepts, from the course in your analysis.
• You make effective use of primary and secondary research to supplement your argument and lay out your position.
• Your resources are appropriate for a college level course and are appropriately cited.
• Your writing is free of spelling and grammatical errors.

Grade: B
• Your topic is focused and well thought out.
• Your thesis is clear but the organization of your paper could use some work.
• You make use of a concept or concepts from the course, but they need to be better explained and/or situated within your analysis.
• Your research is adequate but you primarily relied on course assignments without doing extensive research.
• Your resources are appropriate for a college level course and are appropriately cited.
• Your writing contains a few spelling and/or grammatical problems.

Grade: C
• Your topic is not entirely clear and is either unspecific or only loosely connected to our coursework.
• Your thesis is not pronounced and your organization needs considerable work.
• You make reference to a theoretical concept or concepts from the course but you do not explain them well or use them effectively.
• You did the bare minimum of research for your paper and the materials do not contribute a great deal to your argument.
• Your resources are appropriate for a college level course, but are not appropriately quoted, cited or integrated into your paper.
• Your paper does not include a formal bibliography or list of works cited.
• Your paper needs to be proofread for spelling and/or grammatical errors.

Grade: D
• Your topic is either too vague or only loosely connected to our coursework.
• Your paper does not have a clear thesis and/or is poorly organized.
• You do not make a clear connection between your topic and a theoretical concept or concepts from the course.
• You paper is not well researched and makes no reference to reading materials assigned during the semester.
• Your resources are not appropriate for a college level course and are not appropriately used (or cited) in your paper.
• Your paper does not include a bibliography or list of works cited.
• Your paper has numerous spelling and grammatical errors.

Grade: F
• Your topic is unclear and/or unrelated to our coursework.
• Your paper suffers from a lack of clarity and/or organization.
• You make no clear connection between your topic and any theoretical concepts from the course.
• Your paper demonstrates a general lack of research.
• Your resources are inappropriate for a college level course, i.e. are most likely taken from random sites on the Internet or have little intellectual relevance to our course.
• Your paper suffers from a variety of spelling and grammatical problems and is clearly not proofread.
• Your paper does not include a bibliography or list of works cited.

Grade: Zero
• You either did not turn in the assignment or plagiarized material in your paper.



-Presentations-
Grade: A
Your presentation was well prepared and well delivered.
• You clearly laid out your argument and gave an excellent synopsis of your paper.
• You made sure to define and/or explain your topic with specific reference to the theory (or theories) you utilized in your paper.

Grade: B
• Your presentation was generally good but could have been better prepared or organized.
• You gave a pretty good synopsis of your paper and your argument.
• Your description of the topic and/or the concepts used in your analysis was effective, but could use some work.

Grade: C
• Your presentation was mediocre, meaning it was not that well prepared and did not provide a substantial amount of detail, background or context.
• You adequately described your topic but did not properly explain your argument or the concepts used in your analysis.

Grade: D
• Your presentation showed a general lack of preparation and provided your audience with only a vague overview of your topic and your argument.
• You failed to make any clear connection between your topic and any of the concepts we discussed this semester.

Grade: F
• You presentation was not prepared and it is clear that you did not take this aspect of the assignment seriously.
• You did not provide a clear description of either your topic, your paper, or any of the concepts from our course.

Grade: Zero
• You did not deliver your presentation and did not provide me with any legitimate (documented) excuse for doing so.

Final Paper Guidelines

Overview
This is a 8-page paper in which you will utilize theories and concepts from the course to analyze a specific text, cultural practice, space, or idea. In addition to making use of course materials, I expect you to do a substantial amount of research and to utilize academic materials in your analysis i.e. peer-reviewed journals and books. Think of it as a more advanced version of the 'case study' you did in your Introduction to Cultural Studies course (for those of you who wrote one).
  • Due on the Friday after our last class meeting.
  • You must send me a copy of your paper via email (.doc -or- .pdf attachments are preferable). The document should have your last name as the title, for example: Jones.doc -or- Furness.pdf (it saves me the hassle of re-formatting your papers when I put them into folders on my computer). 
  • I will not accept late papers. 
  • Failure to turn in a final paper will result in an automatic 'F' for the course. 
  • Papers should be 12 pt Times New Roman font, standard margins, double-spaced. 
  • The only information you need to include at the top of your paper is your name, the date, and the title of your paper. Please do not give me a cover sheet, plastic binders or anything else...a staple in the corner works just fine, and feel free to print on the back of old assignments, show flyers, etc (just put an 'X' through the old material to avoid confusion).
General Information and Sample Papers
Here are links to Case Study papers written by previous students in my Cultural Theories course (on news coverage of Katrina, and Reggae) and in my Introduction to Cultural Studies course (on the Virgin of Guadalupe, and 'Ethnic' Dance). I’m giving them to you because they are all good examples of how to do a ‘cultural studies’ analysis of a concise, workable topic. In each of these papers, the authors examine specific cultural phenomena—news coverage, music, religious icons, dance (respectively)—and they all use theoretical concepts to frame their arguments. You should pay particular attention to the way the authors do the following things:
  • They each formulate a clear thesis.
  • They make use of research materials from scholarly resources (particularly the Cultural Theories sample paper on Katrina news coverage).
  • They effectively apply theoretical concepts from the course.
When I talk about making 'effective' use of people's theories and concepts--such as Gramsci's notion of 'hegemony' or Edward Said's description of 'orientalism'--I mean using other people’s ideas/arguments to support your position...not the other way around. That is to say, your paper is not simply a place for you to restate what an author already says. Instead, you need to integrate an author's ideas and specific points into your own argument.....and you need to do so by paraphrasing and making use of direct quotations (both of which need to be accurately cited). With respect to the general requirements, it should go without saying that I expect your paper to be well-written, free from spelling errors and major grammatical errors, coherently organized, and rigorously proofread.

Selecting Your Topic
I’m more than happy to help you develop your paper and/or formulate your analysis. I’m also willing to help you come up with ways to shape, or direct, your topic. What I am not willing to do is to simultaneously provide you with a topic, an argument, a way to organize your paper, and a list of resources to use. In short, you need to put some effort into thinking through your topic and your argument. Consequently, if you need to get in touch with me about your topic, make sure that you can at least answer the three most basic questions that I would ask you myself:
  • What is your topic and why are you interested in writing about it?
  • What do you want to say about it, specifically? In other words, what are the main questions you hope to address in your paper? 
  • What concept(s) from the course are going to be the most useful in framing your analysis?
If you can’t answer these questions then you need to spend some time figuring it out. From there, I can help direct you to readings and I can also help you develop some questions or points to investigate in your paper. Coming up with a topic and a theoretical framework (meaning the strategic use of a concept, or set of concepts) is part of the assignment. If that seems difficult, it is supposed to be…it’s college, remember?

Format
I don't care what citation format you use in your paper, just stick with one throughout the paper (either Chicago Humanities style footnotes or MLA parenthetical citations). Make sure to include specific page numbers in your citations (unless it's an Internet resource) and also be sure to include a formatted bibliography of the sources you used in the paper. Not citing your sources and/or not turning in a bibliography will earn you an automatic 'F' for the paper.

If you make use of materials from the Internet--i.e. articles that are only available online and not in print--make sure to include the following information in your bibliography: the author, the title of the article or post, the main website from where an article was found, the date when the piece was originally written or posted (if/when available), and finally, the address itself. I do not care about the date when you accessed the article. Here are some sample citation and a corresponding bibliographic entry:
  • Footnote: April Streeter, "B-Cycle Bike Sharing Has Plans for Denver...and a U.S. City Near You?," TreeHugger.com, March 13, 2009, Online.
  • Parenthetical citation: (Streeter, 2009)
  • Bibliography entry: Streeter, April. "B-Cycle Bike Sharing Has Plans for Denver...and a U.S. City Near You?" TreeHugger.com, March 13, 2009. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/bcycles-big-bike-share-plans.php
More Specifics About Doing Research
I’m not going to put a quota on how many resources you are suppose to use for the case study but a good rule of thumb is to have at least one scholarly resource for every page of your paper (i.e. a five-page paper would have at least five sources, in addition to the main article or articles that you are using to build your analysis). However, it all depends upon the quality of your sources. For example, citing three different articles in the Chicago Sun-Times doesn’t count as doing scholarly research.  Newspapers and other reference materials are immensely useful, but they are not a replacement for primary research, which should consist of:
  • Class readings
  • Scholarly, peer-reviewed articles (i.e. found in journals like Media, Culture & Society, Cultural Studies, Signs, Cultural Anthropology, International Journal of Zizek Studies, etc) 
  • Books written for a college audience (university presses are an easy indicator)
The best place to start looking for these resources is by using the ‘Cultural Studies’ link via the Columbia College library webpage (you can access it through our blog). JSTOR and EBSCO are both great search engines, and if you have never done research before, you should ask the librarians specific questions when you are stuck…that’s what they are there for. And, of course, I'm more than happy to help you with research...I have hundreds of PDFs from every major cultural/social theorist of the last 100 years. This blog also has lots of links to websites that feature dozens of Cultural Studies resources and articles online: I suggest you take a look around at some of them.

As far as Internet resources go, make sure to evaluate their credibility....just because it's online doesn't mean that it's not junk (duh). Also, a final note on Internet publications: Wikipedia is not a legitimate resource. If you are wondering why, please click here to see what I stumbled across when I looked up Simon Bolivar on Wikipedia in 2008 (I took a screenshot). So take it from Mr. T:


"I pity the fool who cites Wikipedia!"

Doing research means that you will undoubtedly have to spend some time wading through resources that may turn out to be irrelevant to your topic, your argument, or the specific points you want to make in your paper. Unfortunately, that’s just how it goes. The right resources for your case study will not always be the most obvious ones, so make sure to give yourself plenty of time to do research. I've tried to offer a variety of articles on each week's topics that should be helpful to you: I posted links to articles or book chapters that are either (1) written by folks who are 'big' names in their specific field of study (i.e. influential scholars) or (2) written in such a way that they help to explain difficult concepts and/or theorists. If nothing else, the bibliographies from these articles will be good places to look for relevant articles and books.

Examples of Case Studies in Scholarly Journals
The following are some great examples of cultural studies 'case studies'. I don't expect any of your papers to be as long or as developed as those listed below, but I do expect you to familiarize yourself with some of the conventions that these authors use in their work. Namely, the ways that each author begins his/her paper by clearly defining both the object of study (the topic) and the specific theoretical framework being used in the paper.

Production and Consumption Case Studies
Feminism and Gender Case Studies
Nations & Nationalism Case Studies
Post-colonial Case Studies
Psychoanalysis Case Studies
Semiotics Case Studies
Identity & Cultural Production Case Studies
Technology Case Studies
Space and Place Case Studies
Mobility Case Studies
Postmodernism Case Studies